


Mother's Day

by InkDrawnDreamer



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Gen, Gwen-centric, Holidays, I don't always write gwenvid but when I do it is pure domestic fluff, MomGwen, Mother's Day, Oneshot, dadvid, gwenvid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 12:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkDrawnDreamer/pseuds/InkDrawnDreamer
Summary: Gwen never felt like a mom.That was what she had thought anyway, until she came home that night





	Mother's Day

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly an attempt to curb my writer's block over the weekend, but I'm pretty happy with it overall. Even if don't du much with it, I do have a soft spot for gwenvid.

Gwen never felt like a mom.

Sure, she spent a lot of time looking after kids for her job, and at home too now since Max had started living with her and David, but she never really like a parent. If anything, she was more like a glorified babysitter. She didn't really mind—after all she had never felt all that compelled to have kids herself. She was okay with it, although the feeling of not quite being one or the other did make her feel strange when talking to people she knew who actually  _ were _ parents. She could generally relate to their complaints and observations about their own children, but she always ended up getting reminded that she wasn't quite on their level somehow. She straddled an unusually blurry line between being a parent and not being one, and every once in a while, it did manage to make her melancholic. When David first brought up the idea of fostering Max, it was treated as temporary and oddly casual. Max's refusal to think of their relationship to him as parental in any way only fueled that feeling further. But that was just how the three of them operated. Gwen and David discussed Max's care, his grades, and how they handled his addition to their life no differently than they would when they were at camp. They were his current legal guardians, sure, but they only  _ looked _ the part of a nuclear family as far as Gwen was concerned.

That was what she had thought anyway, until she came home that night. She left for work that morning without talking to either of the boys, but this was normal. She was the only one who worked on Sundays, so she usually just let them sleep in on the weekends and gave them a call to check in during her breaks. Today was no different. They had actually been watching movies together before she went to bed last night, but apparently David and Max had fallen asleep on the couch after she retired to her room. They were still splayed out on the couch when she woke up, both sound asleep and drooling slightly in the most disgustingly adorable way she’d ever seen. There was no time to take a picture though, so she settled for throwing a blanket over the pair and planting a kiss on each of their foreheads before she headed to work. She hadn't bothered to double-check the alarms, seeing as there was no work or school for either of them to worry about. Everyone in their household could stand to make up for lost sleep anyway, but David especially. Getting through his last semester of school had been hard enough, but he somehow became even more sleep-deprived after he began putting his new education degree to use. He and Gwen frequently did their work together on the couch, entering patient information and drawing up lesson plans on their respective laptops while the TV droned on in the background. She liked those quiet moments a lot; they served as little reminders that no matter how busy either of them got, or how preoccupied they were with living their own lives, they could still find ways to be together and simply enjoy each other’s presence.

Today Gwen was working at the pharmacy rather than in the office. Going for pharmacy training had initially been David's idea, after listening to her complaints about how little extra work she was able to pick up at the hospital already. Sure, going back and forth between two jobs was hard, but the experience had already been a big help to her résumé. Although few psychiatric jobs were available in the area, pharmaceutical experience was a big bonus for several of them. With any luck, she might have actually been able to use her psychology minor for something soon. For now though, she still had a full day's work to attend to. Sundays were often quieter than the rest of the week was, but there were still plenty of errors to correct and patients to talk in circles with about their medications. Her lunchtime call to David was unusually brief, but she figured that he was probably busy with school stuff. Sunday nights were always busy for him, in no small part because he had his own work to do in addition to making sure Max got his homework done. By the time her workday had finally come to an end, Gwen was long past it.

Right now she was far more concerned with why all the lights in the apartment were off. David's car was still parked on the street when she walked in, so he couldn't have gone far, although there were also not many places within walking distance of their building that he would have reason to go to anyway. The answer Gwen was looking for came quickly on its own, however, accompanied by a flash of light and a two-person chorus shouting  _ "surprise!" _ .

Gwen blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the returning light.

"Happy Mother's Day!" David added to her stunned silence. He was standing in the kitchen doorway alongside Max, all smiles and holding a large gift bag in both hands.

"What?" She still looked befuddled as he handed his bag over to her.

Max's face was inscrutable even as he added another silver bag to the pile. "Let's sit down first," was all he added as he and David ushered her toward the living room.

There was actually a bit of decor hanging over the couch in the form of yellow streamers and a few pink balloons. It wasn't anything huge, but they did do a pretty nice job of making the room look festive.

"You really didn't have to go to all this trouble," Gwen said as she took her seat between the two of them.

"Hey, we did it because we wanted to do it." David beamed at her. "Something small at least."

Well, she certainly wasn't one to turn down a party, even if it was just a party of three. Gwen tore through the first bag with renewed energy, eagerly peeling back the crumpled paper to reveal a sleek black laptop bag. Her old one had gone from worn out to threadbare in the last few months, and she'd had her eye on a new one for some time, although her current budget eventually forced her to put off getting a replacement. This new bag was made of shiny black leather and was almost twice the size of her old one, which was both great and a bit disconcerting when she wondered what it must have cost. She flipped it over in her hands, examining every part carefully, and smiled when her fingers found something in the front pocket.

"What are all these?" She held up a few small pieces of papers.

"New stickers! For your laptop," David said as he thumbed through the stack to show her. "There's one from Nikki, the 'neutral good' one is from Nerris, and—oh!—Dolph drew the TARDIS one here."

"Wow," she chuckled and looked up at David's softly smiling face. "Thank you so much."

He leaned in just enough to let Gwen kiss him on the mouth, and for once Max didn't roll his eyes. When they broke apart, Max all but pushed his own gift into her lap. “Here,” he said without looking up.

He seemed almost...shy, which was a little puzzling, but Gwen decided to ignore it and dug through the crepe paper, gently pushing aside each piece until she saw a scrap of dark blue at the bottom of the bag. When she pulled the object out, she couldn't help letting out a quiet gasp. It was a knitted beanie, TARDIS-blue, with intricate patterns trailing down the sides in neat rows. On one side there were also lilac-colored layers of knit bunched together in the shape of a flower.  _ It's so cute, _ she thought.

“I didn’t know your size, so it’s a little bigger than average, but it should still fit okay,” he murmured.

She stopped studying the hat for a second. “Wait,” she said slowly. “Max, did you make this yourself?”

He tipped his head to the side, looking toward the wall. “I mean, David helped me figure out the pattern for the flower.” He gestured toward the man in question. “But otherwise, yeah.”

“This is amazing,” she mumbled—and she honestly meant it. For as much as he insisted on being a thorn in her side, Max was a pretty incredible kid. He was creative, he was good at making and assembling things, and he paid more attention to details than anybody thought. Gwen ran her fingertips over the rows of stitches all around the flower accent. How many times had she passed by his bedroom door when he was working on this, she wondered. She looked over at Max, who was still facing the wall but watching her from the corner of his eye. 

“I love it, Max.” Gwen’s fingers ghosted over his shoulder for a second before bringing him close and wrapping both arms around him. He took a moment to respond, but he reciprocated with an arm around her side and his forehead buried in her shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you for being such a thoughtful, hard-working kid.”

“You’re such a sap,” he said half-heartedly.

“You’re damn right I am,” she replied. “And I’m also hungry, so what do you say we go grab dinner. I’ll buy.”

“Oh no! Absolutely not. Not on Mother’s Day.” David stood up, hands on his hips. “It’s my treat, and I think I can already guess where we’re going.”

“Oh can you now?”

“”Pike Street Pasta Bowls?””

She grinned. “Damn, you know me too well.” She stood up along with Max and the three of them headed to the door. 

Once everyone was zipped into their jackets, she did a double-take. “Wait just a second,” she said before pulling the hat out and stretching it over her short ponytail. It was a bit loose, but it was comfortable all the same. She didn’t miss the quick grin that flitted across Max’s face either. “All right, now let’s go.”


End file.
